The present invention relates to a connection between a drive shaft of a motor and a driven shaft of a driven apparatus.
Without restricting the invention to this, more specifically the present invention relates to such a connection between a drive shaft of a motor and a driven shaft of a driven apparatus, whereby the shafts extend in an axial direction at a certain lateral distance from one another, whereby the connection is realised by means of a drive gearwheel on the drive shaft and a driven gearwheel on the driven shaft, whereby the drive gearwheel and the driven gearwheel directly mesh with one other and these gearwheels are affixed in a housing, and this housing is connected to a housing of the motor on the one hand, and to a housing of the driven apparatus on the other hand.
Such a connection to which the invention relates, is simple with regard to its construction and is of a limited compact size, as the drive gearwheel on the drive shaft directly meshes with a driven gearwheel on the driven shaft without there being additional gearwheels.
The motor can, for example, be an electric motor or a combustion engine or similar.
The driven apparatus can, for example, typically be a compressor element.
According to the state of the art, such connections of the aforementioned type between a drive shaft and a driven shaft are already known, but the known connections present a number of disadvantages.
More specifically the gearwheels, with which the connection is formed, are intended to realise a certain transmission ratio, whereby the angular velocity of the drive shaft is converted into a different angular velocity of the driven shaft.
To this end, in the known connections a gearwheel with external toothing is provided on the drive shaft and on the driven shaft, generally a large gearwheel on the drive shaft that meshes with a small gearwheel on the driven shaft.
Compressors, for example, have to run at a very high speed in order to build up a sufficient pressure, whereby the angular velocity of the drive shaft generally has to be geared up via the gear transmission.
The transmission ratio to be realised, which corresponds to the ratio between the diameters of the gearwheels concerned of the gear transmission, thus often has to be very high.
However, in practice the transmission ratio cannot be increased without limit.
When using gearwheels of ordinary quality, such as for example helical gears that satisfy the DIN 3961 standard—class L6, the maximum limit for the transmission ratio turns out to be 3 for example, because above this limit the contact between the teeth of the gearwheels leads to excessive noise.
This can be remedied, for example, by using gearwheels of a higher quality, which means an enormous additional cost however, which for the application concerned has to be limited as much as possible.
Of course it is also the case that the transmission ratio can be increased by using a number of gearwheels and additional shafts, but this is at the expense of the compactness and simplicity of the connection, which in the context of this invention is an undesirable alternative.
A great disadvantage of the known connections to which the present invention relates, is that only a limited transmission ratio, typically 3, can be realised, at least insofar the simplicity and dimensions of the connection, as well as the quality of the gearwheels and the cost of the gearwheels coupled to this, is to be limited.
Another disadvantage of the known connections to which the invention relates is that changing the transmission ratio between the gearwheels requires a lot of modifications.
In the known connections to which the invention relates, the drive shaft and the driven shaft are located a certain fixed lateral distance from one another, such that both the drive gearwheel and the driven gearwheel have to be replaced if the transmission ratio is changed.
This means that many different gearwheels have to be provided on the one hand, and that such a change of the transmission ratio requires a lot of assembly work on the other hand.
Moreover the fixed lateral distance between the drive shaft and the driven shaft places severe restrictions on the choices for the composition of a gearwheel pair with which the desired transmission ratio can be obtained.
This difficulty also stands in the way of rigorous standardisation of the known connections to which the invention relates.
The purpose of the invention is to provide a solution to one or more of the foregoing disadvantages and any other disadvantages.
More specifically the purpose of the invention is to realise a connection between a drive shaft of a motor and a driven shaft of a driven apparatus, and this connection enables a high transmission ratio, but whereby the connection is of a compact and simple construction.
Moreover, it is the purpose of the invention to realise an aforementioned connection that enables rigorous standardisation, and whereby the transmission ratio can be changed without much difficulty.